What's supposed to be a meditation on love plays out as a mere exercise in titillation. And that's not much of a feast. More like an hors d'oeuvre.
Feast of Love (2007)
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Reviews Counted:111
Fresh:45
Rotten:66
Average Rating:5.3/10
Consensus: Though beautifully photographed, Feast of Love offers little beyond a trite, melodramatic character drama.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for strong sexual content, nudity and language.
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:05-10-2007
Synopsis: Love is the star of this film from director Robert Benton (KRAMER VS. KRAMER, THE HUMAN STAIN). Bradley (Greg Kinnear) believes in the power and beauty of true love. He's good at falling in... Love is the star of this film from director Robert Benton (KRAMER VS. KRAMER, THE HUMAN STAIN). Bradley (Greg Kinnear) believes in the power and beauty of true love. He's good at falling in love--just with the wrong women. He's hoping that his relationship with sophisticated Diana (Radha Mitchell) will have a happier ending than his first marriage to Kathryn (Selma Blair). Bradley's friend Harry (Morgan Freeman) is happily married to Esther (Jane Alexander), but they are dealing with the loss of a different kind of love. At the same time, Oscar (Toby Hemingway) and Chloe (Alexa Davalos) are busy falling in love at first sight and starting their life together, even though the odds are against them. In this film, no relationship stone is left unturned, and no relationship is judged. Instead, love in various stages of growth, dissolution, and transformation is explored. From love at first sight to divorce and death, to long-term relationships and affairs, multiple facets of love are seen as what they are: simply a fact of life. Freeman's character, a professor on sabbatical, serves as an elder statesman of sorts, wise enough to notice nuances in relationships the other characters miss. Kinnear is endearing as Bradley, who simply wants to love and be loved. Davalos is someone to watch--she lights up the screen, and Alexander commands every frame in which she appears. Be prepared: this is not the light-hearted romp it appears to be in the trailer. There is quite a bit of nudity and sexual content, and some very adult themes. Set in Oregon, the film is based on the novel of the same name by Charles Baxter, and also features Billy Burke and Fred Ward. [More]
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Billy Burke
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Billy Burke, Selma Blair, Alexa Davlos, Toby Hemingway, Jane Alexander
Director: Robert Benton
Director: Robert Benton
Screenwriter: Allison Burnett
Producer: Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Richard S. Wright
Composer: Stephen Trask
Studio: MGM
Reviews for Feast of Love
Never feels much more than a softly-lit, meandering, slightly senile made-for-cable television movie.
Director Robert Benton and screenwriter Allison Burnett tell a sobering, adult-geared tale of love's highs, lows and maddening twists and turns.
A bit too involved and convenient at times, but still classy and heartfelt all the way.
Feast of Love the movie is less specific than The Feast of Love the book, but it has its heart in the right place -- that longing place.
Benton has made better movies about doomed marriages (Kramer vs. Kramer), but this one has no organic reality.
This heart-warmer by Robert Benton has some of the tender wisdom and humor of his other features.
Director Robert Benton and writer Allison Burnett don't give us time to breathe. Characters meet, fall in love and set out on condensed journeys of self-discovery at top speed, as if their lives consisted entirely of momentous events.
Feast of Love is bathed in the dark wood and lengthening shadows of a serious movie, but it ultimately can’t reconcile its humanism with its fatalism.
Feast of Love is [Benton's] easiest movie to like since 1994's Nobody's Fool, and it's immediately homey.
Director Robert Benton's film is a rushed and ludicrous amorous mash up.
Although Feast is sometimes depressing, a natural side effect when touching on issues such as infidelity and death, it is also uplifting and tender.
There's an occasional scene that works -- a funny sequence where Bradley bargains for his dog with a kid -- but as the movie progresses, the melodrama is piled on with a bulldozer.
Playing a canny old papa bear dispensing nuggets of advice to a flock of unruly cubs in Feast of Love Morgan Freeman has a role he could act in his sleep.
As a meditation on the vicissitudes of love, on the need for people to connect, and the struggles that come by both making and missing those connections, the movie is wading-pool deep.
There's something endearing in the way Benton assumes a little full-frontal is enough to erase the bile that develops watching this agonizing marathon of navel-gazing.
A rare bird in the world of mainstream movies. It's thoughtful and literate enough to make it seem positively original.
This is the kind of thing you'd expect on a women's cable network movie-of-the-week.
[It]turns out to be a mess, and not one... where you enjoy a film despite its problems, but rather one where the problems keep getting in the way of your enjoying it at all.
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September 27, 2007:
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